Category: Determining the Project Budget

Let’s take a quick review of the common challenges that a project manager faces when figuring a project budget. By increasing awareness of these factors, you can work proactively to avoid them in your own situation. The Absolute Minimum At this point, you should have a solid understanding of the following: The map in Figure 9.3 summarizes… Continue reading Common Budget Challenges

After you have your resource requirements and work duration estimates, you can start to develop the budget. Like the estimates for work, it is best to estimate your costs at the work-package level. By taking a bottom-up approach, you are in the best position to identify all your resource needs and develop a more realistic… Continue reading Developing an Initial Budget

The actual process of developing a project budget is straightforward. The general challenges lie more with omissions and the foundation on which the budget is based. In this section, we review the details of the development budget and finalize the budget steps depicted in the general project planning process flow in Figure 9.1. Sources of Project… Continue reading Creating a Project Budget

Before we get into the details of building a project budget, let’s review the fundamental principles that guide this process:

Even if you find yourself in an environment where it is not expected that you develop a project budget (instead you are asked to primarily manage schedule and scope), I strongly encourage you to do two things: The project budget estimates all the costs the project will incur, and when they will be incurred. It… Continue reading The Impact of the Project Budget

It’s one of the key success factors for projects—completing the project within budget. Yet, for many project managers, especially those managing internal projects, it’s the success factor they have the least awareness about. There are several reasons why this occurs, and it does vary by industry, but most of the reasons have to do with… Continue reading Introduction